In this topic I will post the quality characteristics of Pure Red Line shrimp, how I believe they should be. Most of them are commonly accepted and some of them are personal preferences.
 
I will show you examples of colored legs, white and red density, body, tail, antenna's and more.
 
We'll kick of with the obvious: pure white.
The white of a PRL should be pure white. Very bright, but also soft like silk. This has less to do with the thickness. It should not have any yellow or pink tint.
 
For example:
 
Yellow tint:

 

Pink tint:
 

 

And finally the pure white as I like it:
 


I admit that lightning is a little to bright on this picture, but believe me this is one piece with nice clear white in real life.
 
And another picture of this piece:
 

 
Next time I will show you examples of leg coloration!
 
Any questions or requests for the next post, feel free to ask.

Edited December 11, 201411 yr by Shrimpmaster

I am looking forward for the continuation of these post.

 

I have a lot of questions about PRL cause I would like to have some in my next set up. Thanks for the first post.

Fantastic thread dude, will definitely be watching this with great anticipation!

Yes very interesting.

Waiting in anticipation!

Good to hear! I will try to keep up and post on a weekly basis
 
As promised this time: leg coloration
 
This is for me one of the most important quality characteristics to aim for. Because without colored legs it's not complete for me. I can divide it in three groups:
- Full red legs
- Top part white legs
- Top part white, bottom part red
 
I've seen a lot of full red legs, but I've never see full white legs. And I've never seen top part red and bottom part white. If you got a picture of these, feel free to post or drop me a link.
 
The leg coloration develops when the shrimp gets older. The white is visible form very young age. Just a few weeks old, you already can see the white on the legs. The red is different. It takes about 6 month to develop full thickness. According to my experience it keeps getting better when the shrimp grows older.

 

Examples:

 

Just a little leg coloration

 

Red leg coloration (not the best example, but will do for now)

 
update: ShrimpyDaddy came to help and send me a nice picture of a piece with full colored red legs, great example:

 

 

White leg coloration

 

 
The most desired coloration of the legs for me is without a doubt the Top part white and the bottom part nice and deep red. This one of my shrimp match the most according to this description:

 

But still I feel I have a long way to go before I'm satisfied about the leg coloration. I'll keep selection and searching for ways to improve this part.

Leg coloration also has something to do with the body pattern. I've noticed that Smiley pattern shrimp has white legs, but hardly no red in it. While shrimp with a Hinnomaru pattern have much more red in their legs than other shrimp. It will take more time to come up with a final conclusion about this observation.

Next time I want to show you something about: antenna coloration. Seems to be a small part, but it has huge impact on the overall appearance of the PRL shrimp!

Edited December 11, 201411 yr by Shrimpmaster

Awesome stuff dude, definitely a fan of the half half as well, all white looks very nice too!

Wonderful information and amazing images! Many thanks!

Too bad we don't have any true PRL here is Aust. ME WANT!!!

Awesome write up mate im keen to see the antenna colour btw im a fan of the white legs

Edited December 11, 201411 yr by Ronskitz

Thank you for the post. very informative.

Once again, fantastic information.

Loving this thread right now! Keep up the good work. Once JRB colors up within 2 weeks I'll try to assist by adding pictures.

Loving this thread right now! Keep up the good work. Once JRB colors up within 2 weeks I'll try to assist by adding pictures.

Definitely looking forward to that!

Nice info keep going =)

It's Tuesday again (at least on this side of the world) and time for a new post. I'm glad you're not bored so far, so lets continue! .
This time as promised: antenna coloration.

For me, a PRL shrimp is only complete with white colored antenna's. Without it, it looks like a normal shrimp. I cull out all shrimp with no or bad antenna coloration. So far just one exception of one piece with very very beautiful red and white, I keep that one and hope the offspring will have full white colored antenna's instead.
When talking about the antenna's we are talking about a lot of parts. I'm not an biologist, but I've looked it up:

 

 

 

The antenna starts with a thicker part and then the actual small antenna. A total of 6. But most people talking about antenna coloration are talking about the thick part. I've never seen the thin part also colored like Sulawesi shrimp have. This is very very rare among Cardina shrimp. Still I hope to breed it one day if possible.

 

1. This are a 4 small antenna attached to the upper tick antenna part.

2. This are the two long antenna's attached to the thick part below.

3. This is a part in the middle. I believe you should not call it an antenna, but with the naked eye it just seems to be a part of it. Sometimes the shrimp moves this parts sideways (to clean them?) and you can see them.

 

Sulawesi shrimp, full colored white antenna's up till the end:

 

Back to the PRL antenna. When you look close, almost without exception there is some red in it. Especially on the middle antenna part (nr. 3 in the illustration). When the antenna is red, it looks like it has no color with the naked eye. Because of the contrast I guess, so I always aim for a least full white of the upper tick part (nr. 1 in the illustration). This has the most effect when you see them in real life.

 

Red colored antenna's:

 

 

Looks nice hu? But only on a macro image, in real life this looks not very nice at all.

 

This is an example of a piece with white colored upper part (nr. 1) but red or no color at the other parts:

 

Or this one, with more red in it:

 

 

Most of the time this will be enough to give the shrimp a good look. But when the other parts are also white it shines even more.

 

Like this one that has almost completely white only, just a small touch of red. Again, with the naked eye, you can't see this small red spots:

 

This is the same shrimp as used before in this topic:

 

 

 

I'm sorry if the pictures a not top quality. I've had little time and to show the antenna's I have to use a lot of 'digital zoom' (crop) an this makes it even worse. But beside that I think this is a good example of antenna coloration.

 

Next time I hope to show something about.... surprise . I will first contact some people with PRL/JRB to see if they got some images of the subject I have in mind.

I see why your avatar name is shrimp master coz that my friend is exactly what you are lol

Btw what is JRB plz

Japanese Red Bee, Shrimpy Daddy has done another fantastic thread explaining the difference very well.

http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/index.php/topic/7991-japanese-red-bee-shrimp-photographs/?view=findpost&p=96938&hl=jrb

I hope this pic illustrates your point Shrimpmaster, I found this on the net a few years back & it is the shrimp that I am using as a marker for my goals in breeding red bees. Hopefully Shrimpy Daddy can identify if it is PRL or JRB, my guess is JRB as MK Breed is a Japanese company like Benibachi & their pure line. Enjoy & try not to drool on your keyboards! Lol.

Hmmm... Sorry but have to say this. I don't really trust things coming from any big brands. You can tell from the picture that the shrimp looks unnatural.

Edited December 17, 201411 yr by Shrimpy Daddy

Oh well, unnatural or not, has given me something to aim for!

I hope this pic illustrates your point Shrimpmaster, I found this on the net a few years back & it is the shrimp that I am using as a marker for my goals in breeding red bees. Hopefully Shrimpy Daddy can identify if it is PRL or JRB, my guess is JRB as MK Breed is a Japanese company like Benibachi & their pure line. Enjoy & try not to drool on your keyboards! Lol.

 

I believe this is the poster child of MK-Breed's PRL.  This photo has been floating the web for a few years now and has gained a lot attention and flame.  There's been folks claiming that this photo is theirs (by cropping out the MK signature) and others claiming that this specimen was supposed to be a present from MK for their long term personal business relationship but regardless, this is a very VERY famous photo.  It's hard not to see why this photo is so famous, but again it's so incredibly good that it's hard to believe a specimen of such perfection actually exist.  Personally, this photo really got me when I first came across it and was instantly driven with the devotion to figure out who/what this MK-Breed was.  

 

I have yet to see an MK-Breed shrimp match this level of perfection since.  Albeit, I haven't seen many folks floating around with thousand dollar camera equipment suitable to capture and PRL/JRB in it's truest form (folks with camera can attest that taking photos of PRL/JRB is incredibly difficult due to the white reflecting light and making the shrimp look so much nicer than it really is).  I don't believe that such shrimp does not exist, I'm just saying it's highly improbable and extremely rare AND expensive.  

 

I don't recall MK-Breed being a Japanese line nor do I recall seeing their lineage available at Lowkeys Osaka (HQ) in Japan on my last visit.  If I'm not mistaken, MK-Breed is more a Taiwan/HK brand but again, I could be very wrong and if someone knows better please correct me.

Edited December 17, 201411 yr by ShrimpFan

Thanks for the info, I've always wanted to know the story behind this pic.

I don't recall MK-Breed being a Japanese line nor do I recall seeing their lineage available at Lowkeys Osaka (HQ) in Japan on my last visit.  If I'm not mistaken, MK-Breed is more a Taiwan/HK brand but again, I could be very wrong and if someone knows better please correct me.

 

It's a Taiwanese farm but not much people from Asia buy their shrimp. They are only successful in selling to NA.